Taxi charge system on its way in Indonesia
Taxi charge system on its way in Indonesia
By Russell Williamson
Indonesia may have its first taxi charge card system in place
before 1997 following the formation of Cabcharge Asia in
Singapore.
Cabcharge Asia Pte Ltd is a joint venture between the
Australian taxi charge card firm, Cabcharge Australia Pty Ltd and
Singapore's CityCab Pte Ltd.
Cabcharge Asia will serve as the regional hub for Cabcharge
and plans to expand into Indonesia are already being implemented,
with CityCab signing a memorandum of understanding with taxi
company PT Steady Safe.
PT Steady Safe operates about 3,000 taxis and 450 buses in the
greater Jakarta area and expects to add another 750 taxis and
1,000 buses to its fleet in 1996.
The memorandum of understanding states that CityCab will
assist PT Steady Safe to computerize and upgrade its current taxi
dispatch system and, under the auspices of Cabcharge Asia,
develop and promote a taxi charge account system.
The managing director of PT Steady Safe, Jo Liat Tjiang, said
the implementation of the Cabcharge system may be possible within
about one year, although the timing was subject to a number of
factors.
"We still have to finalize our study concerning the whole
subject and it is directly or indirectly subject to the
introduction of the same system in Singapore, which is supposed
to be implemented at the beginning of next year," Jo said.
He said the company, with the help of CityCab, also needed to
upgrade its dispatch operations and service infrastructure before
initiating a charge card system.
"We have to improve the service around the system because our
company still has many weaknesses and we would like to improve
those things first before we start with the Cabcharge system," he
said.
The system will be based on the Cabcharge system first
developed in Australia in 1976, which allows corporate and
individual customers to charge taxi fares on a charge card.
The card is not tied to any particular cab company and can be
used in affiliated cabs around the world with payment made on a
single monthly account in the client's own currency.
Cabcharge has arrangements with taxi companies in the United
Kingdom, Europe and North America.
The Cabcharge Asia joint venture is owned 85 percent by
CityCab and 15 percent by Cabcharge Australia Pty Ltd.
Cabcharge Asia plans to capture about 10 percent of the Asian
taxi payments market within five years and is already
investigating additional opportunities in China.
According to the executive director of Cabcharge (Investments)
Pty Ltd, Richard Fleming, countries with less developed taxi
industries, like China, would see the company investing in more
than just a charge card system.
He said Cabcharge Asia had begun to invest in high quality
taxi services with computer dispatch systems and charge card
systems in some major mainland Chinese cities.